A pressure-relief valve about God, and just about everything else.

Anyone who knows me, or has read my words, knows my positions on most issues and knows that I stand outside of any particular demographic. I am watching Sean Hannity and forcing down the bile that rises, and wonder:

Where’s MY party?

I am a Christian.

I am a Black male.

I am actually MARRIED to the mother of my son.

I was in the military. I’m not a pacifist, but THIS war is creating problems, not solving them.

I make my living in the arts.

I believe Affirmative Action is the best known way of closing the opportunity gap in America. (Uh Oh…)

I believe in gun ownership, and tough crime enforcement.

I believe that there are policemen who abuse their power, and let their racial prejudices influence their work. I have experienced it. Recently.

I believe in abstinence before marriage, and that Godly marriage is between one man, and one woman.

I hate taxes.

I think that the government owes me protection and opportunity since they take my income before I even get it.

I don’t hate, or even dislike, White folks.

I HATE racism, though. I don’t ignore it when I see it, and I talk about it when it happens.

I think that (this will probably hurt some of you…) The “Christian Right,” is populated by a LOT of people who are flat-out racist.

Abortion is a dealBREAKER!

So, I ask you: Where do I go? For whom do I vote?

Democrat? I can’t, because as I stated, abortion cut that tie. Also, being a Christian, I do not agree with many other of the moral positions they, as an organization, take or endorse. For example; school prayer, gay marriage and all things pro-gay, EMBRYONIC stem-cell destruction, partial-birth abortion, (the regular kind is bad enough!) feminism, and the eradication of my faith from public discourse or display. Besides, any voting atheist would likely vote democrat. Even though atheist Christopher Hitchens is in favor of the war, he’d rather drink a gallon of holy water and tattoo the Cross on his right cheek than vote for Mitt Romney! How can I vote with those who hate God?

They are cotton-soft on the punishment of crime, to the point that practically NO murder is heinous enough to warrant the death of the perpetrator, even with indisputable evidence. Prominent democrats are known to bash active Christians to mush at every opportunity. The Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John Kerry kind of Christians are cool though, because their faith has never been taken out of the package. Christians are the last group that it is still politically proper to ridicule.

Democrats (and once again, I am generalizing…) would tell me that if I hear an intruder in my house, I should cower in the closet and wait for the police to come rather than shoot him myself. That’s because they have enough money that the cops will come RUNNING if they call. I shouldn’t even own a gun, according to them. But who’s going to stop the crooks from getting guns? THAT bell can’t be un-rung.

The only time they quote the Bible is to mis-quote “Thou shalt not kill,”and “Judge not, lest ye be judged.”

If you are engaged in almost ANY immoral activity and need an advocate… Get a democrat! You want to smoke weed? Get a democrat. You want drug use legalized? Get a democrat. You want to marry another YOU? Get a democrat. You want to say all manner of foul things on the air, or join NAMBLA (North American Man-Boy Love Association ), or teach second graders about using condoms, or get rid of all those offensive nativity scenes at Christmas? Call the ACLU. The PUPPET of the democrats. Are you a female who wants to join a football team, or are you a gay male who wants to teach young boys how to camp in the woods? Get a democrat. They’ll get it done for you!

You make a lot of money? Get a democrat! They’ll take a third of it before you get a penny and propose to spend it on some unGodly enterprise you abhor. They don’t care, they don’t have to tithe. Let the ignorant Christians worry about all that junk. Rather than actually care, they simply throw money at a problem and pat themselves on the back for it.

Maybe they weren’t about this stuff in the past, but they are now.

The Democratic party came into my awareness as the party of those who freed us from the bonds of Jim Crow. They were the Kings, and Kennedys, and L.B.J.’s of the sixties who obtained for us the right to vote, intermarry(!), and attend any school. They were the party of fairness and equality. Generally speaking, of course. My parents voted democrat, and so did I. But in the last few years, as society has become more permissive, the party has done the same.

They are populated by a lot of passive, pacifist, communist-minded, put-all-our-resources-into-the-same-pot, anything-goes-except-for-anything-I-don’t-agree-with folk who don’t see that there is no perfect society, and that their way of operation is plunging us all into an orgy of moral debauchery that is rotting us from the inside out… WHEW! They love animals, but hate fetuses. They think that men and women are exactly the same. Democratic women value career over family, and sex over marriage, abortion over the right of the unborn.

I don’t care what anybody says, my vote is a mark of my loyalty, and I refuse to align myself with those whose beliefs and sentiments are diametrically opposed to the God whom I worship. I will not give my loyalty to those who operate in contradiction to my worldview. As stated in an earlier post, my beliefs inform all my decisions.

So… Does all this mean that I am a republican?

NO! Just as emphatically, if not moreso.

Yeah, republicans say that they believe in upholding the same moral values I have, but they repulse me in other ways. (again, for you knee-jerks, I generalize)

I mentioned Sean Hannity at the outset. For the purpose of this lesson, he will be my prototype. He claims Christ, he is clean-cut, and fiercely patriotic. He loves the police, and is willing to give them as much rope as they need. Until, like tonight, one is caught on tape threatening a motorist with trumped-up, made-up charges for sassing him. (I don’t dislike police, some of my friends are cops, I just happen to be of an ilk that has seen what those with “God Complexes”- a term a cop friend gave me- can do when motivated) Hannity is, apparently, God first, America first, family first. But it is my considered opinion that, after exhaustive research, he, Laura Ingraham, Ann (tiChrist) Coulter, and Rush (to judgment) Limburger will be riding the four horses at the Apocalypse! I’m just sayin’…

Hannity appears to be a nice guy, but there is something in he way he speaks that bothers me. When he interviews someone with whom he disagrees, he does so only in an attempt to corner them, not to advance the discourse. He is a shill, a sycophant for his party, and (facetiously) if I am better than anybody, I am better than he, because I at least try to look objectively at all political sides! He may not be a racist, but he looks just like one!

Republicans, in general, are the party of the Cold. They ignore the plight of the haven’t gots. They are sincere in that, unlike democrats, they don’t care and don’t care that you know that they don’t care. And rather than throw money at a situation, they just throw empty platitudes, peppering their rhetoric with terms like, “bootstraps,” and “self-made.”

Republicans are the party of law enforcement. As I stated earlier, I am Black. I know some of you may have wondered what difference THAT made. (many republicans view the “Race Card” the same way Dracula looks at a Cross!) Being Black makes me sensitive to issues of wrongful incarceration. Being Black also has made me a victim of unfair treatment. In the last few years, DNA has acquitted many unjustly imprisoned Black men. Republicans would have said, “Why are we wasting so much time on this case? He was convicted by a jury of his peers!” They forget that juries are populated by people. Not twelve Jesuses!

I am in favor of the Death Penalty insomuch as it is justly applied. Which it is NOT. I have a friend who, when working for a public defender, was involved in a case in which a mentally retarded teen was put to death for accessory to rape and murder. He was in the car and was not allowed to get out when the incident began. He did not have the reasoning skills to make the right decisions. He WAS RETARDED! and now he is dead. This has happened many times. We are a country that executes mentally deficient Black people. Republicans look at the news and say, “He’s Black. He’s on the news. He’s guilty.” Tell me I’m wrong, Hannity.

I was in the military, so I cannot be accused of being a pacifist. War is sometimes necessary in order to restrain great evil. I understand that it is not an exact science, and that sometimes innocent people die. But there is point at which talking is done, and one must fight.

When those planes hit those buildings, I said, “Let’s get whoever did that. Not arrest them, but kill them.” Terrorists are punks. I think all terrorists need to go see the Lord. Flat out. I was on board, honestly, when we went into Afghanistan, but when the President started to turn that big machine left towards Iraq, I jumped off. When he said that they had WMD’s I gave him the benefit of the doubt -more doubt than benefit- until it became apparent that Iraq was on the table from the beginning.

I am against this war now, not for the pacifist’s reason, but because if you ask me to loan you my car to go to the store, and you drive right by the store and proceed to Vegas, I will rebuke you and doubt your word in anything else. I will not, as Hannity does, hang in there with you truth or lie, right or wrong. And that does not make me a bad American. (Hannity regularly calls those he agrees with, such as Ollie North, G. Gordon Liddy, Newt Gingrich, Trent Lott, or Charlie Daniels, “Great Americans.”)

The Religious Right are republican, and as I said earlier, I agree with their moral stances on certain Christian issues, i.e. abortion, sexual purity, gay rights issues, self-protection etc. However, there are other moral issues, too. Jesus commanded us to care for the poor, and parentless, and to show compassion for the weak, but I don’t see them crusading about that. It is often said that the (late) Falwells, and such tend to love the fetus and hate the baby. This seems to be true.

It appears that the Religious Right say all the religiously right things. But when I see you in the street, or in the store after church, or in your schools, or dating your daughters, your actions and glares tell the TRUE story. Your faith has a loud, powerful-sounding motor, but no transmission! You say that you love the Lord, and follow His tenets, but your lives rat you out. You say racist things, you think racist thoughts, you live apart from any unlike you. On purpose. You go to all White churches, send your kids to all White schools, if at all, join all White country clubs (are there any other kind?), and live in all White suburbs. I know whereof I speak: I am the only Black man on my street!

When you close your bibles, and speak on political, social matters, you begin to sound like a party full of Archie Bunkers. You eschew government programs clearly designed to help the poor, neglecting to notice that there are more White folk on welfare than Black folk, and you talk about quotas as though someone made you eat mud. You take your kids from schools that get too Black, and you defund them and wonder why Black kids are undereducated. I have even heard some of you, in true Bunkerian fashion, dare to say that White men are the most discriminated against! REALLY?!

So you get profiled, and shot 51 times while unarmed, and targeted for predatory loans?

YOU have to ask permission to sit under a tree, and get charged for attempted murder for a school fight, too?

Oh. Is this about a JOB you didn’t get?! Is that all?! You know how many jobs I didn’t get? ALL of ’em! Except for the busboy job, or the stockboy job. You’ve got the world at your FEET! You know how long my WIFE has been trying to get a better job? And SHE graduated magna cum oh lawdy! Did YOU have to disguise, change, or alter YOUR name because it sounded too WHITE? Miss me with all your boo-hooing!

Government programs, such as CETA, gave me, and countless other inner-city teens, jobs when I was a kid. That ended under the reign of the Great Reagan. That is just a fact. When I was young there were NO gangs in my city. Crime, drug abuse, and teenage pregnancy were anecdotal and not ubiquitous, as they are now. We had government mandated programs to provide us with the diversionary activity not needed by privileged republican children. That was one significant block in the Jenga pile that, when removed, began to topple Black youth. Republicans don’t like government programs.

I’ll have to do another enitre post on Affirmative Action, but I’d like to ask an honest question. Give me an honest answer: How would you, Hannity, or Hannitite, propose to FAIRLY deal with the opportunity gap that has been in the very DNA of this nation since its inception? How do you propose to even up a race that has been going for generation after generation after generationaftergenerationaftergeneration? Someone whose father’s father’s grandfather was allowed to obtain a grant or land rights or inherited a plantation or a Harvard admission that allowed him to enrich his great-great grandchildren when my great-to the third power-grandfather couldn’t, by law, learn to read, or own a horse, or vote, or get a bank loan. Those are the cold hard facts. We are here now, all of us, and we have to figure out the best way to do things.

When you ignore the pus-filled, bleeding pimple on the nose on your face, and tell me to “Get over it! None of you were slaves,” you expose yourself as heartless and worse!

You know what? When Beaver Cleaver was going to school in an air-conditioned building, and learning from new, state of the art books and equipment, my mother was being taught by a woman who didn’t even finish high shcool, in a school in the weeds, with inadequate books, if any at all! This still happens to this very day! My grandfather “worked hard,” according to your simple formula, and HE didn’t get to live out the fulness of the American Dream. My mother had to watch him call eight-year-old White kids “Sir.”

My sister, an aviation major, had to endure having a flight instructor LIE and tell her that the plane in which she had to train in order to complete her flying hours for graduation was out of order for months. When we had a White woman call to request the same plane, he said, “Sure! When can you come in?” My sister is now an elementary school teacher. You want more? I got a million of ’em!

It is a cold and heartless person who can look at this evidence and say that all that needs to be done is to hire the most qualified person regardless of race. By that reasoning, you know, Hannity, that the Haves will Get, and the HaveNots will Get Screwed! Being poor doesn’t equal being stupid. Those with none have the same capacity to learn and achieve if given a fair shot as those with everything.

One final point: Who do the racists vote for? Who do the KKK that vote, vote for? What party does David Dukes Claim? What was Strom Thurmond’s affiliation? After the civil right’s era? Stop someone with a rebel flag in their back window and ask them whether they voted for,

Bush or Clinton.

Clinton or Dole?

Bush or Gore?

Bush or Kerry?

The prosecution rests. Racism and hypocrisy, like abortion, are dealbreakers.

I will not be voting alongside those who hate me! That would be the same as going to the Grand Wizard’s restaurant and orderin’ up a mess a’ fried chikken an’ greens! What would be the chances of my getting some added substances, some special sauce along with my order? I won’t vote for who the racists vote for, because their programs and such might cause harm to those who don’t share their hue. They might ignore real cases of racial mistreatment in order to feel good about themselves. Republicans don’t rock those kinds of boats. I will not look ahead in the line and find out that I and the disingenuous, dual-faced Hannity are buying the same items.

I will not vote with those who claim Christ, but don’t SHOW Christ.

So, to my earlier question: Where is my party? How do I vote and maintain loyalty and integrity. I recognize the sacrifices made by those courageous forebears of mine. Blacks, of all Americans, have an obligation to vote. But what do I do? Independents are often irrelevant. How would Jesus vote? Would he align Himself with the baby-killers, or the racists? With the militant lesbian feminists, or the dispassionate Pharisaical hypocrites?

Before I close, I want to say that I attend a church that is iconoclastic in the sense that they tear down every negative stereotype about the interaction between Blacks and Whites! They are multi-racial, mostly White, and WONDERFUL! Our church has actively plunged into the torrid waters of racial reconciliation. They love me and I love them. They have almost made a liar out of me in this post, which is partly why I continually stated that I was generalizing. If the whole world were MY church, I dare say, we’d all be living just one floor below Heaven!

About Us

Derrick L. Williams is the husband of Kathy, the daddy of Max (hence Maxdaddy), Diana, and, Steven Horace(!), and a professional saxophone player with a Christian heart who has strong, sometimes humorous, probably controversial opinions on the state of the world. He attends a multi-racial, doctrinally sound church on purpose (!), and lives in a racially divided, troubled city.

There’s a lot of stuff to gripe about, but the desire is to teach as well as to entertain. He has quite a bit to say, and he has a need for someone to listen.

He loves romance novels by crackling fires, thick wool sweaters, and hot cocoa with marshmallows in it, long walks in cool breezes, poems spoken in soft, whispery voices, and brunches by babbling brooks! HE IS JUST KIDDING!!!